Comments about ‘Ex-ceptional parenting: Former partners need to work together when raising children’

This is such an important subject. Thanks for reporting on some positive things that are happening. Articles that help educate people to be better parents are needed. There is so little out there to really educate parents in their job, whether married or single. It is a tough road and anything the media can do to help promote positive parenting is also exceptional. Thank you.

This is surely something to work towards. We all know children suffer through divorce. Yet, if two people could get along, they would still be together. It takes many divorced couples years to be civil with each other.

Thanks for covering this really critical subject. There are many success stories in coparenting and not many of them ever see the light of day. It's important to remember that changing the dynamic of any relationship only takes ONE person, not two, and if you decide to be the one to be civil, your children ultimately benefit. And so do you.
I'm writing a book on the subject called "Families Inc. - All About the Business of Coparenting" and write a weekly blog on the subject at Blogspot. I can't post the URL - Sorry!You can search under my name, above.

This is a very educational and helpful article. From personal observation, I want to add that many of the tensions are caused by the ex-husband when he fails to realize that he is a disruptive, negative force in his children's lives, especially when the children and their mother have replaced him with a "new" more spiritually attuned father.

To paraphrase Amy Cook, 'This is a a very educational and helpful article. From personal observation, I want to add that many of the tensions are also caused by the ex-wife when she fails to realize that she is a disruptive, negative force in her children's lives.'

Why do we always assume the man has made things worse. And just a little news flash...the mother may have replaced him but the father can never be truly replaced by the new father.

There are men who definitely need to do better but on behalf of loving, caring dads, the ones who never miss a support payment but find themselves shut out of their kids lives by a bitter, vindictive former spouse who is constantly berating them in front of their kids, disrupting visitation and making things worse it most definitely works both ways.

In most cases divorce torments the children and it never seems to stop. It creates wounds that never heal. I am near retirement and I am still haunted by my parents divorce (and this was a fairly cordgial divorce).

Before any married couple has children they need to make an honest assessment of their future together. Divorce has become to casual, I think it would be avoided more if couples knew the long term consequences on their children (that are most often left unspoken).

Re :Been there
Staying in a relationship that is modelling the incorret way to treat another, modelling disrespect to another, and treating the children as if they are not present will not be helped by staying together. Staying together will damage the children more than ending the relationship. Unfortunately there is no one way that will create no damage or stress but I think one has to add up the advantages and disadvantages of both choices and take it from there. I know I made the right decision to end the relationship and that my children are better off with things the way they are at the moment.

Any couple can learn the "correct" way to treat each other if they can stop thinking about their own needs and be more thoughtful of each other. Sometimes this seems impossible to accomplish, but like Kristin Hillman said it only takes one person to get the ball rolling. Otherwise, don't have kids! They are tortured wondering why mom and dad can't learn how to care about each other. The only divorce that seems truly worth it is a relationship so damaging that the children themselves will vote for it. But do they ever get a say? No, it's frequently just mom.